Embodiments of the inventive subject matter generally relate to the field of wireless communications and, more particularly, to a dynamic power mode switch technique in a wireless ad-hoc network.
Wireless devices implement power saving mechanisms to conserve battery power and reduce energy consumption. In an ad-hoc wireless local area network (WLAN), a wireless device generates unicast and/or multicast announcement traffic indication map (ATIM) frames to notify other wireless devices of pending data transfers. The ATIM frames are transmitted in an ATIM window. The wireless devices that receive the ATIM frames remain in an active state to receive the data. The wireless devices that do not receive the ATIM frames enter into a sleep mode or an inactive state after the ATIM window ends.